Orthogonally adjustable supports for tools and work holders have been known for many decades and have taken a variety of forms usually dependent upon the loading imposed upon the two axis support and the accuracy of adjustment, if any, required. In the widely used cross slide arrangement for supporting work holders and tools, linearly reciprocable slides are slidably mounted in a dovetail-type groove in a frame and a lead screw rotatably carried by the slide engages a stationary nut member on the relatively fixed frame for the slide. The slide in turn may form the base for a cross slide that also carries a rotatable lead screw threadedly engaging a nut member carried by the first slide.
This cross slide arrangement is suitable for heavy duty load applications and is quite capable, with the appropriate gearing and/or associated servo-mechanisms and controls, of providing accurate positioning of the work or tool supported on the cross slides. However, in many applications this degree of precision in positioning the work or tool is not required and the load supported does not require it.
A variety of linearly adjustable supports such as rod and rod clamp support structures has been suggested in the past for lighter load applications. In this general class of structures a fixed rod is provided and a rod clamp is adjustably positioned on the rod either with a deformable C-lamp or by a set screw arrangement where a set screw threadedly carried by a rod slide frictionally engages the side of the rod. In some cases an additional linearly adjustable rod passes through the clamp itself to gain an additional axis of adjustability for the support.
While the rod clamp supports have found a considerable degree of success for supporting light-load tools and workpieces, and other implements such as lighting, they have not found any great success in supporting medium or heavy-duty tooling workpieces or implements in the industrial environment because of their inability to positively lock either axially or rotationally, and also because of their inability to be adjusted in small increments. These rod clamp support assemblies rely primarily on friction to achieve locking, and hence experience a degradation in performance under higher loads, both linearly and rotationally.
One prior solution to the problem of providing adequate support in intermediate load applications utilizes a square threaded rod with a support member slidably positioned on the rod and located in position by opposed threaded fasteners on the opposite sides of the support member. This square rod and sliding support design, however, has not achieved any significant commercial success because of its inability to accurately locate the block on the rod and to positively lock the fasteners with respect to the square rod.
While the square rod support is satisfactory for some applications, it does not permit adequate clamping of the block on the rod because the block only clamps the rod on two sides, and this results in rod play in a plane transverse to the clamping direction.
A still further disadvantage in the square rod support is that substantial portions of the thread must be cut away, or never formed, to achieve the square configuration and this reduces axial rod strength. Also, the square rod support requires a large support block for a given rod cross-sectional area because of the square configuration of the bores therein.
It is the primary object of the present invention to ameliorate the above problems noted in multiple axis supports for intermediate load tools, workpieces and other implements.